Mallinder: Forward power saw Saints into semi
Northampton Saints rugby director Jim Mallinder praised the power of his forwards who steam-rollered the Connaught pack to ensure a home semi-final in the European Challenge Cup.
Saints ran in four tries in a hectic last 11 minutes but the 42-13 victory was built on their forward dominance led by the front row of Scottish international prop Euan Murray - an almost certain selection for this summer's Lions tour to South Africa - England hooker Dylan Hartley and Tongan Soane Tonga'uiha.
"Our scrum was huge," said Mallinder, whose side will entertain the winners of the Sunday quarter-final between Saracens and Newcastle on the first weekend in May.
"Euan Murray, in particular, is playing well. His game has improved massively this year, not just his scrum which is very good.
"He was carrying today, his defence is very good, he very rarely misses tackles and he has improved his all-round game immensely.
"Dylan and Soane are also really enjoying their scrummaging at the moment. When you can put teams under pressure like that and pick up penalties from your scrum it is fantastic for field position and we are really pleased with that aspect," said Mallinder.
He added: "It was a little bit of a late show again. You've got to keep patience and keep working and trust your game plan and the fitness of the players and we did that and came through in the end."
Jonny O'Connor, the second of the three Connaught players to be yellow-carded, admitted: "Discipline let us down.
"It was disappointing. We let ourselves down because, definitely, that's a game we could have won.
"We played some good rugby at times and in the first half a lot of the play was down in their half but unfortunately we didn't go the distance."
Connacht finally caved in, conceding four tries after the late sin-binnings of O'Connor and full-back Gavin Duffy reduced them to 13 players but Irish international flanker O'Connor said: "Some of them were quite harsh.
"My own, I was trying to get out of the way. I did clip things so I suppose it's a penalty but it wasn't intentional. It was just unfortunate.
"I think Gav's was just a knock-on effect from already only having 14 men on the pitch - the pressure of going backwards left him exposed."
Despite having replacement prop Brian McGovern yellow-carded less than a minute after substituting for the injured Ronan Loughney in the 34th minute, Connacht had competed for most of the match.
O'Connor added: "I think he paid for what had happened before. There was a lot of pressure on that side of the scrum."
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Tuesday 07 February 2012
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